ND receives $3.55 million for nanotechnology research

SOUTH BEND -- The University of Notre Dame has received two grants totaling $3.55 million for its nanotechnology research aimed at developing the next generation of super-fast computers.

The grants were awarded by the Semiconductor Research Corp.'s Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (SRC-NRI) and the National Science Foundation. The grants are aimed at helping develop new technologies to replace today's transistors.

A Notre Dame research team led by engineering professor Wolfgang Porod received $1.8 million to explore a new approach to computational "thinking" based on physics-inspired and brainlike wave activity. The research envisions a future in which computer chips contain millions of cores, and process elements in networks modeling the brain's biological structure.

Another research team led by engineering professor Craig Lent received $1.75 million to advance a type of computing known as Quantum-dot Cellular Automata, which was pioneered at Notre Dame. In QCA, the switches of current silicon-based transistors are replaced by single molecules that interact with neighboring molecules through changes in charge.